Last week I went to see the inauguration. I had more fun than Victoria did, she was whining about being cold half the time. Fortunately Christopher came along, too, so we took turns dealing with her crabbiness. We also got to spend some time with the babysitter, a gloriously surreal evening that culminated in sitting in her front room, sipping tea, and watching The Bachelor with her daughter's boyfriend and his mom.

Back in Columbus we've had a touch of snow recently. Today I shoveled for hours to clear the driveway and that was with the assistance of a neighbor who volunteered to use her borrowed snowblower on in until the owner showed up to claim it. The snowblower was fabulous at removing, big surprise, snow. Underneath, however, there was a couple of inches of ice. Tenacious ice.